Dante's Inferno

A Medieval Journey through
the Nine Circles of Hell

Botticelli Map Of Hell

​"Constructed as a huge funnel with nine descending circular ledges, Dante’s Hell features a vast, meticulously organized torture chamber in which sinners, carefully classified according to the nature of their sins, suffer hideous punishment, often depicted with ghoulish attention to detail. Sinners who recognize and repudiate their sins are given the opportunity to attain Paradise through the arduous process of purification, which continues in Purgatorio. A shift from human reason to divine revelation takes place in Purgatory, a place where penitents awaiting the final journey to Paradise continually reaffirm their faith and atone for the sins they committed on earth."

​- Poetry Foundation
​

Sandow Birk: Dante's Inferno|WikiMedia Commons

​A Few Quotes to get Started
​

“In the middle of the journey of our life I found myself within a dark woods where the straight way was lost.”

“The path to paradise begins in hell.”

“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”

The Nine Circles of Hell

by Adam Burgess
​
​reposted from ThoughtCo
​

Dante’s "Inferno" is the first part of his three-part epic poem "The Divine Comedy," written in the 14th century and considered one of the world’s great works of literature. "Inferno" is followed by "Purgatorio" and "Paradiso." Those approaching "Inferno" for the first time might benefit from a brief structural description. This is Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell, guided by the poet Virgil. At the beginning of the story, a woman, Beatrice, calls for an angel to bring Virgil to guide Dante in his journey so that no harm will befall him.

Here are the circles of hell in order of entrance and severity:
​

1. Limbo: Where those who never knew Christ exist. Dante encounters ​Ovid, Homer, Socrates, Aristotle, Julius Caesar, and more here.
2. Lust: Self-explanatory. Dante encounters Achilles, Paris, Tristan, Cleopatra, and Dido, among others.
3. Gluttony: Where those who overindulge exist. Dante encounters ordinary people here, not characters from epic poems or gods from mythology. The author Boccaccio took one of these characters, Ciacco, and incorporated him into his 14th-century collection of tales called "The Decameron."
4. Greed: Self-explanatory. Dante encounters more ordinary people but also the guardian of the circle, Pluto, the mythological king of the Underworld. This circle is reserved for people who hoarded or squandered their money, but Dante and Virgil do not directly interact with any of its inhabitants. This is the first time they pass through a circle without speaking to anyone, a commentary on Dante’s opinion of greed as a higher sin.
5. Anger: Dante and Virgil are threatened by the Furies when they try to enter through the walls of Dis (Satan). This is a further progression in Dante’s evaluation of the nature of sin; he also begins to question himself and his own life, realizing his actions and nature could lead him to this permanent torture. 
6. Heresy: Rejection of religious and/or political “norms.” Dante encounters Farinata degli Uberti, a military leader and aristocrat who tried to win the Italian throne and was convicted posthumously of heresy in 1283. Dante also meets Epicurus, Pope Anastasius II, and Emperor Frederick II.
7. Violence: This is the first circle to be further segmented into sub-circles or rings. There are three of them—the Outer, Middle, and Inner rings—housing different types of violent criminals. The first are those who were violent against people and property, such as Attila the Hun. Centaurs guard this Outer Ring and shoot its inhabitants with arrows. The Middle Ring consists of those who commit violence against themselves (suicide). These sinners are perpetually eaten by Harpies. The Inner Ring is made up of the blasphemers, or those who are violent against God and nature. One of these sinners is Brunetto Latini, a sodomite, who was Dante’s own mentor. (Dante speaks kindly to him.) The usurers are also here, as are those who blasphemed not just against God but also the gods, such as Capaneus, who blasphemed against Zeus.
8. Fraud: This circle is distinguished from its predecessors by being made up of those who consciously and willingly commit fraud. Within the eighth circle is another called the Malebolge (“Evil Pockets”), which houses 10 separate bolgias (“ditches”). In these exist types of those who commit fraud: panderers/seducers; flatterers; simoniacs (those who sell ecclesiastical preferment); sorcerers/astrologers/false prophets; barrators (corrupt politicians); hypocrites; thieves; false counselors/advisers; schismatics (those who separate religions to form new ones); and alchemists/counterfeiters, perjurers, impersonators, etc. Each bolgia is guarded by different demons, and the inhabitants suffer different punishments, such as the simoniacs, who stand head-first in stone bowls and endure flames upon their feet.
9. Treachery: The deepest circle of Hell, where Satan resides. As with the last two circles, this one is further divided, into four rounds. The first is Caina, named after the biblical Cain, who murdered his brother. This round is for traitors to family. The second, Antenora—from Antenor of Troy, who betrayed the Greeks—is reserved for political/national traitors. The third is Ptolomaea for Ptolemy, son of Abubus, who is known for inviting Simon Maccabaeus and his sons to dinner and then murdering them. This round is for hosts who betray their guests; they are punished more harshly because of the belief that having guests means entering into a voluntary relationship, and betraying a relationship willingly entered is more despicable than betraying a relationship born into. The fourth round is Judecca, after Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Christ. This round is reserved for traitors to their lords/benefactors/masters. As in the previous circle, the subdivisions each have their own demons and punishments.

After making their way through all nine circles of Hell, Dante and Virgil reach the center of Hell. Here they meet Satan, who is described as a three-headed beast. Each mouth is busy eating a specific person: the left mouth is eating Brutus, the right is eating Cassius, and the center mouth is eating Judas Iscariot. Brutus and Cassius betrayed and caused the murder of Julius Caesar, while Judas did the same to Christ. These are the ultimate sinners, in Dante’s opinion, as they consciously committed acts of treachery against their lords, who were appointed by God.

​- From ThoughtCo: https://www.thoughtco.com/dantes-9-circles-of-hell-741539

Process and the Inferno: A Note
​

Many twenty-first century readers are morally repulsed by images of torture chambers and hideous punishments, whether ordained by God or by other human beings. And some are not sure there is life-after-death in the first place, be it hellish or purgatorial or beatific. They will read Dante’s Inferno for its literary merit and imaginative prowess, but not for its guidance on moral judgement.

This dismissal of the moral relevance of Dante is a mistake. The Inferno offers guidance, too, but of the evocative not the didactic kind. It is a lure for feeling, inviting honest self-questioning about love, retribution, justice, and God. 

Many of the sins Dante names are within us and around us: especially lust, gluttony, greed, anger, violence, and fraud. If we are shaped by open and relational (process) theologies, we will see these sins as ways that we miss the mark of responding to God's lure toward love. That is what sin is in a process context; it is missing the mark or falling short of the ideals by which we might rightly live.

But "missing the mark" does not quite capture the energetic power of sin. Once we give in to sins, they (the sins) begin to gain momentum of their own. Sins are not just abstract properties of otherwise rational agents, they are emotional dispositions and energies that take hold of us, such that our very souls become tainted with their destructive energies. To put the matter in technical Whiteheadian terms, we "feel the feelings" of our own personal pasts, consciously and unconsciously, including the destructive feelings; and we "conform" to these destructive feelings, emotionally and intellectually, propagating their "subjective forms."  We fall into the habit of greed, of gluttony, of lust, of violence, and of fraud. Sin becomes our lifestyle. 

Are all sins the same? With Dante's help, we can rightly wonder if some sins are a bit more "sinful" than others. Interestingly, he placed fraud as more sinful than violence. We may or may not reverse that order, but we rightly recognize that not all sins are equal. Dante invites us to prioritize sin, recognizing levels.

In Dante's time, it was obvious that sins are punishable, and not simply for purposes of rehabilitation but for purposes of retribution. We post-medievalists might like to think that we have moved beyond the idea of retributive punishment. But such punishment rests on an idea that there needs to be a re-balancing of things after sins are committed. Punishment is that re-balancing. Perhaps you, the reader, can think of a person or two - a politician, perhaps - whom you would like to see punished in this way.

The value of Dante's Inferno for us is not that it gives a map of hell; the value is that it stretches our imaginations beyond comfortable, middle-class pleasantries, so that we are honest about our own sinfulness and about our own desires that "others" be punished. These desires are very much part of our psyches, like it or not.

​Like Dante, we find ourselves journeying in a dark forest, not sure of our way. The uncertainty itself is a gift. We journey into liminality, with Dante's help, and we wonder as we wander. 
​
​- Jay McDaniel, 11/14/22

A Scholarly Discussion
​of Dante's Inferno
​

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dante’s ‘Inferno’ - a medieval journey through the nine circles of Hell. “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”. This famous phrase is written above the gate of Hell in a 14th century poem by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The poem is called the ‘Divine Comedy’ and Hell is known as ‘Dante’s Inferno’. It is a lurid vision of the afterlife complete with severed heads, cruel and unusual punishments and devils in frozen lakes. But the inferno is much more than a trip into the macabre - it is a map of medieval spirituality, a treasure house of early renaissance learning, a portrait of 14th century Florence, and an acute study of human psychology. It is also one of the greatest poems ever written. With, Margaret Kean, University Lecturer in English and College Fellow at St Hilda’s College, University of Oxford; John Took, Professor of Dante Studies at University College London and Claire Honess, Senior Lecturer in Italian at the University of Leeds and Co-Director of the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies.

Want to Read Dante?

Try Digital Dante from Columbia University

​Click here.
​

Spiral of Hell
​